Michelle Kwan Is Engaged — Congrats

Congratulations are in order for Michelle, who has announced her engagement to Clay Pell! Read on for all the details.

Olympian Michelle Kwan is engaged! The champion figure skater has announced her engagement to Clay Pell through People magazine.

Clay, 30, is the director for strategic planning on the National Security staff at the White House. He and Michelle, 32, first met in April of 2011. Michelle tells the magazine, “It was a simple decision and it made sense, that’s what’s so exciting to me. We are working together as a team, like in [pair skating].”

Of the proposal, which took place on Block Island, off the coast of Rhode Island, Michelle tells the magazine, “It was hot and we were going to go into the water to cool ourselves off a little bit. I wasn’t anticipating going swimming. I said, ‘I don’t feel comfortable because I don’t have my bathing suit on.’ He’s like, ‘No, come on in,’ so I said, ‘Okay.'”

Clay continues, “I was nervous about wanting to do it right, but I wasn’t nervous about what the answer would be. We had been talking for a while about how we would like to have a family and the idea of getting married and what we wanted to do with our lives – and public service. So I think we both knew where we were relationship-wise and where we were going.”

Both have a history working in public service. Michelle was appointed to serve on the Council to Empower Women and Girls Through Sports in June by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and she continues to work in the State Department as a U.S. public policy envoy. Clay, who is also a JAG and Lieutenant in the U.S. Coast Guard, is the grandson of late Rhode Island Sen. Clairborne Pell, who established Pell Grants for colleges 40 years ago.